Monday, 14 November 2016

Climate Changed! Provisional WMO Statement: 2016 to be the hottest ever recorded

Photo Pakistan Today

The World
Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has claimed 2016 will be the warmest year
ever and will break even the record temperatures of 2015, which was also claimed
to be the warmest year on record.

Global
temperatures for January to September 2016 have been about 0.88° Celsius
(1.58°F) above the average (14°C) for the 1961-1990 reference periods, which is
used by WMO as a baseline. Temperatures spiked in the early months of the year
because of the powerful El Niño event of 2015-16. Preliminary data for October
indicate that they are at a sufficiently high level for 2016 to remain on track
for the title of hottest year on record. This would mean that 16 of the 17
hottest years on record have been this century (1998 was the other one).

Long-term
climate change indicators are also record breaking. Concentrations of major
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase to new records. Arctic
sea ice remained at very low levels, especially during early 2016 and the
October re-freezing period, and there was significant and very early melting of
the Greenland ice sheet.

The
deadliest event so far in 2016 has been Hurricane Matthew, which was Haiti’s
worst humanitarian emergency since the 2010 earthquake. Throughout the year,
extreme weather led to considerable socio-economic losses in all regions of the
world.

Photo Atlanta Black Star... Huricane Matthew

“In parts
of Arctic Russia, temperatures were 6°C to 7°C above the long-term average.
Many other Arctic and sub-Arctic regions in Russia, Alaska and northwest Canada
were at least 3°C above average. We are used to measuring temperature records
in fractions of a degree, and so this is different,” said Mr Taalas.

It’s the
third year in a row a warmest year has been recorded and 16 of the 17 warmest
years have been recorded this century. The only exception was 1998. With El Niño
contributing to the record warmth for 2015/16 that is now gone, next year may
not be so warm but I wouldn’t bet against it!

The Big
Wobble reported a large increase in heatwaves this year with thousands dying
from the heat in India and Pakistan alone.
In August Kuwait tied the world’s highest known temperature at 129.2
degrees (54 Celsius). A week later The United Arab Emirates recorded
temperatures above 50C. Australia and Mexico also reached 50C+

Insane
amounts of rain, sometimes a year’s rain reported falling in one day as flash
floods killed thousands but drought killed thousands in other areas, crops and
livestock decimated.

Another phenomena
reported by The Big Wobble in 2016 was a deadly increase around the world of
lightning strikes, a new record was recorded when ten thousand lightning
flashes lit up Hong Kong's night sky over a weekend period in July.

Photo www.channelnewsasia.comTen thousand lightning flashes lit up Hong Kong's night sky over the weekend (Jul 9-10) during a thunderstorm that lasted for twelve hours.According to the South China Morning Post, the Hong Kong Observatory said the number of strikes was "very high" for a summer storm.It reportedly surpassed the July 2005 24-hour record of 9966 strikes.